I love small mechanical surprises — the ones that make you tilt your head and grin. This coin‑hidden pop‑up is one of my favourite tiny tricks: a simple paper mechanism that hides a coin (or small token) and, when you spin it, reveals a tiny illustration in a playful flick. It’s tactile,...
Read more...
DIY Projects
I’ve always loved tiny moments of surprise: a pattern that shifts when you...
Tutorials
I love simple tools that reveal surprising motion, and a three-card flipbook is...
Tutorials
I’m obsessed with tiny, believable worlds — and one small trick I return to...
Tutorials
Running a quick, joyful paper automaton workshop for kids aged 8–12 is one of...
I’m obsessed with tiny, believable worlds — and one small trick I return to again and again is photographing miniature water. When you get the light and reflections right, a scrap of resin or a puddle of gloss medium can read as a pond, a...
Running a quick, joyful paper automaton workshop for kids aged 8–12 is one of my favourite ways to introduce mechanical thinking, storytelling and a bit of theatre to a classroom or birthday party. I designed this session to fit into a 30-minute...
I love a small, secret moment in the mail — something that looks ordinary from the outside but opens to reveal a little bit of mischief. In this piece I’ll walk you through how I design an instant pop-up postcard that conceals a surprise...
I love adding little moments of surprise to my tabletop scenes, and one of my favourite tricks is a convincing miniature fog that hugs buildings, creeps through alleyways or pools in low spots. After a lot of tinkering I've settled on a simple,...
I love the little surprises that happen when a flat surface suddenly looks like liquid—when paint, paper or a tiny vignette becomes a glossy pool of reflected light. Lately I’ve been photographing small “resin water” scenes for...
I love the quiet little shock of a tiny figure suddenly flipping through the air as if pushed by some secret breeze. Getting that flip to read as a single clean loop — with the thread invisible, the movement smooth and the mechanics entirely...
I love tiny theatrical moments — the quiet drama of a stage, the surprise of a scene that appears when you open a card. Designing a fold-flat pop-up theater that fits in an envelope and blossoms into a staged scene is one of my favourite...
I love photographing small worlds. A tabletop diorama is a stage where light, scale and story meet, and with a smartphone you can make images that feel cinematic and tactile — rich depth, soft creamy bokeh and a sense of place that pulls the...
I love the soft, dreamy look of sun‑bleached cyanotypes — those faded indigo prints that feel like memories captured on paper. But sometimes you want that same weathered, botanical, salty texture on a prop or in a collage without dealing with...
I teach a lot of short, pop-up workshops where people of wildly different ages and abilities come together around one tiny, brilliant problem: how to make a little cardboard automaton that moves. Ten minutes sounds impossibly brief, but with a...